The best TV shows of 2018, a roundtable discussion

The best TV shows of 2018, a roundtable discussion

To celebrate the end of 2018, For The Win is looking back at the year that was in sports and culture. Because it would be preposterous to expect anyone to rank all the best shows on television — who has time to watch them all? — what follows is a staff roundtable discussion naming our favorites.

Steven Ruiz: Big Mouth

Because I am miserably cynical person, I just expected to be let down by the second season of Big Mouth after its impressive debut. I am happy to report that expectation was not met. Season 2 was very good, and I’m crediting it to the decision to give Coach Steve a bigger role. When the show runners eventually run out of story ideas about kids going through puberty (that’s what the show is about if you haven’t seen it), I would not be opposed to a spin-off focused on Coach Steve’s life. In fact, let’s kick the tires on that right now, Netflix.

Hemal Jhaveri: Lodge 49

A trippy, meandering show with great, lovable characters, Lodge 49 is the antidote to so much exhausting and emotionally draining Important TV. It’s the rare show that doesn’t make you feel like total crap after you’ve watched it, but rather affirms your faith in the possibility of human relationships, no matter how mundane and flawed they are.

Michelle Martinelli: Jesus Christ Superstar

I am confident that had Veep’s seventh and final season aired this year, it would get my vote for best TV show. But it took a year off, and it’s really the only show I watch — reruns of others excluded.

So I say the best TV show in 2018 was NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. To be fair, this rock opera has been one of my favorites for years — it’s about music, not religion — but John Legend and Brandon Victor Dixon gave a life to the decades-old show that fans had never seen before. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock musical was flawlessly performed — and similarly, amazingly live-tweeted by Chrissy Teigen — and the costumes spectacularly complemented the tone of the show as well as the characters wearing them. Even Alice Cooper — who didn’t really seem to embody the King Herod character as much as he just walked up on stage as himself — shined during one of the show’s most popular songs.

Truly, the only criticism I have here is that the music overpowered some of the singing, which isn’t new with this musical but NBC should have made the proper adjustments. And even though this is not a traditional TV show with episodes and seasons, it was on television in 2018, it was sensational and it left a memorable impression on those who watched. In fact, it led me to listen to the sound track nonstop to and from work every single day for two months. Not kidding.

Ted Berg: Bojack Horseman

Netflix’s Bojack Horseman is a difficult show to describe and, at this point, a harder one to categorize. The animated tale of a Will Arnett-voiced washed-up sitcom actor who also happens to be a horse negotiating contemporary Hollywood, it is undoubtedly a comedy but also at times — many times, really — the saddest show imaginable. In its critically acclaimed fifth season, the show found the perfect balance of artsy and fartsy at every bleak turn.

Charles Curtis: The Good Place

Network television these days sometimes struggles to be as wild and unpredictable as its cable and streaming counterparts. The Good Place — Michael Schur’s latest masterpiece after he’s churned out Parks & Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine — doesn’t have that problem. Just when you think you have the show figured out, it’s sending its group of misfit afterlifers (spoiler alert!) back down to Earth for a second chance in the third season before finding a way to get them back into the Good Place (but is it really the Good Place this time?) with a Janet-filled episode for the ages. It’s great forking television.

Andy Nesbitt: Succession

The HBO hit show of the year started slowly but boy once it going it was incredible. Every character brought their own greatness to each episode, much like at the Bluths did in Arrested Development. And who would have thought I would have left 2018 thinking Macauley Culkin’s brother is one of my favorite actors off all time? But that’s exactly what is happening right this second because his character in this show was a thing of comedic beauty, which was very dark but wonderful, which all dark comedy should strive for. If you haven’t seen this show, I’m jealous. Go binge the heck out of it.

Andrew Joseph: Black Mirror

The new season of Black Mirror hasn’t been released yet, but Easter eggs hidden in Netflix’s search suggest that it’s coming soon. Like, this year. I have no idea what it will be like. I just know that I’ll like it and that’s my choice.

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